Elissa Collopy
eac001@marietta.edu
The women’s rowing team has high goals this season—to win the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Championship Regatta and represent their region in the NCAA Championship Regatta in late May.
Stephanie Meinert, along with two other seniors, April Pendergrass and Hannah Platt, were able to compete in the NCAA championship their freshman year at Marietta College.
“It was such as great experience to be able to compete amongst the other top DIII teams in the country and see where our program stood against theirs,” Meinert said.
To achieve this team goal, the women have to work on improving themselves first.
“My goals for this season are to improve my stroke, get faster and grow personally,” Pendergrass said. “I want to learn and grow as much as possible before I leave.”
Pendergrass said rowing is a frustrating sport, but that it’s enjoyable because it’s always a challenge.
“It has a way of forcing one to confront everything they want to avoid, and I am bettered by it,” she said.
The women’s rowing team has acquired a new assistant coach this season, Jane McClellan, who was a member of MC Head Coach Brad Hemmerly’s team while at Williams College in Massachusetts.
“I learned a lot from him when he coached me at Williams, and I thought he’d be able to teach me a lot about coaching as well,” McClellan said. “Division III women’s rowing is incredibly important to me, and as the field continues to grow faster and faster, I think Marietta has the potential to become a major player in the coming years, and I’d like to help the program in any way I can.”
As a senior, Meinert said although rowing is painful and difficult; the closeness of the team makes it worth showing up to practice every morning.
“My hope for post-graduation is that I’ll be able to find something like the feeling of being on this team,” she said.
The team competed in Zanesville, Ohio on March 21 against Duquesne, Dayton and North Park, where a Varsity 4 crew came out in first in the final race of the day; however, there were some noted improvements to be made.
“We now know we have to make some changes to be competitive with those crews when we meet them later in the season, and everyone is determined to do what it takes to come out on top,” McClellan said.
The team will compete again on April 11 and 12 in the Knecht Cup in New Jersey.
